


Hyejin of the Bamboo Forest

by indigo_inks



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Forests, Nymphs & Dryads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26395759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigo_inks/pseuds/indigo_inks
Summary: Keodameo’s not a child himself anymore, though, far from it, but he doesn’t rue the passing of his youth. He’s lived those fleeting years well, he reckons, and using them in loyal service to the greater good. He has no regrets. Far from it.Nevertheless, he’s glad that bamboo trees grow quickly. It means that he has lived to see this day – and to share it withher.
Relationships: Male reforester who's planted thousands of trees/Female dryad of the new forest, Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Het Swap Exchange 2020





	Hyejin of the Bamboo Forest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elsin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/gifts).



Summer

“Beautiful weather today, don’t you think?”

Keodameo tilts his head back and turns his gaze skyward. A canopy of spearhead-shaped leaves filters the yellow summer sunlight some thirty meters above his head, transforming the light into a sea of dapples and sparkles. A gentle mountain breeze rustles the tree branches. That sunlight sea shifts and scintillates in endlessly variable patterns that surround Keodameo on all sides. It’s rather like standing in the inside of a child’s kaleidoscope.

Keodameo’s not a child himself anymore, though, far from it, but he doesn’t rue the passing of his youth. He’s lived those fleeting years well, he reckons, and using them in loyal service to the greater good. He has no regrets. Far from it.

Nevertheless, he’s glad that bamboo trees grow quickly. It means that he has lived to see this day – and to share it with _her_.

“Yes, the weather is wonderful today,” she replies, and her voice is as warm and sweet as the notes played on an antique flute.

The voice distracts Keodameo from his contemplation of the forest canopy. At ground level, beneath the canopy and this deep into the forest, there are trees for as far as the eye can see in every direction. Their silver-green stems are line-straight and tall, evenly spaced so as not to crowd one another. Although he has never counted their exact number, he knows there are over a thousand mature bamboo trees in the forest.

Ah, and there she is at last.

“Hyejin,” he says and opens his arms.

Autumn

The bamboo forests of Keodameo’s mountain homeland were gone before he was born, clear-cut firstly to supply the textile industry and later to build homes for the valley folks fleeing the flood. And finally, shortly before the end, or so the stories go, they were reduced to felling the forests just to have something to eat. Yes, they were that hungry. Those were bad times, bad times indeed. _Very_ bad times.

Fortunately, things are better now. Much better, by the Revered Souls of Heaven and Earth! He’s lived to see the forests of his homeland recover – and this forest, the one that he replanted himself, will always hold a special place in his heart.

And to think – it had all begun with a single culm that fit within the palm of his hand. They hadn’t even known if it would be viable. But it was. And that is how _she_ began. A single planting will, provided that it flourishes, send forth rhizomes underground and sprout new culms. Those culms are the start of new trees. Clonal reproduction, in other words, an entire mountainside’s worth of it. The entire bamboo forest that Keodameo planted in his youth, that ranges as far as Keodameo’s eye can see in his old age? _It’s her. Only her. Hyejin._

She’s lazier now that the air becomes crisp and cool in the evenings, and they make love slowly, unhurriedly. Keodameo doesn’t mind, and he luxuriates in the sensations of Hyejin’s body against his. Her kisses taste of dried grass and honey, and when Hyejin falls into sated sleep, she snoozes with her head pillowed lightly on Keodameo’s chest.

He will have to return to the village’s autumn harvest soon, he knows, or they will not have enough to outlast the cold months. But for now he relaxes and runs his fingers through the silken strands of her green-gold hair and wonders what it would be like to live entirely on air, water, soil, and sunlight.

Winter

Her sleep is unbroken through in winter.

Throughout most of the world, bamboo is a tropical plant…but not here in Keodameo’s mountainous homeland. Here, the jagged, rocky tops of the mountains are never free of ice, and each winter, the snow descends past the high meadows of the village and into the sloping grounds of the forests below.

In ancient times, it was an iconic symbol of the season, and the artisans would go into the forest with their paper and brushes and paints to immortalize it: the once arrow-straight bamboo tree weighted down with snow, a graceful, seemingly architectural arch of stubborn green and glittering white.

Keodameo walks amongst the bamboo trees robed heavily in snow. Thick clots of snowflakes swirl and dance in the wind, and they fill Keodameo’s ears with a sibilant hiss as they fall to the ground. He imagines that it is sound of the forest breathing. His footfalls crunch beneath him as he crosses between the trees. Nothing else alive seems to stir.

“Hyejin,” he says. His words form a cloud in front of him. “It will be warmer soon.”

No voice replies. Keodameo doesn’t expect otherwise.

Spring

This spring, she blooms.

A bamboo forest flowers only twice per century. This year she will make her children, and after that she will make no more until another fifty years has passed. Ah, Keodameo thinks as he walks underneath a forest full of bamboo trees in full bloom, blessed is he indeed to have lived to see this day!

His usual greeting dies unvoiced in his throat when he sees her, for she has never looked more radiant. Her skin seems to glow, and her eyes shine like jewels. Her belly and her limbs seem finely carved, the epitome of feminine beauty. To a tree, the lifetime of a man is hardly more than a season. What he shares with her will grant him immortality. Of a kind.

She is coy and waits for him to approach her. She is as still as a statue, her breathing imperceptible. She is after all a Revered Soul, and she has the patience of one. Besides, they have known each other for a long time, have shared in each other, reveled in each other. If this is to be a true consummation, well, it is emphatically not the first. They have never been strangers; they have always been friends. Lately, they have been lovers.

And soon… _soon_ …

“Hyejin,” he says.

“Keodameo,” she replies. She has never looked more exquisite.

“I am ready,” he says and opens his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Info: [_Phyllostachys edulis_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllostachys_edulis).


End file.
